Creative Writing Workshops

I’m pleased to be offering these writing workshop sessions for 7-11 year olds next week at my favourite book shop, the All Good Bookshop in Turnpike Lane.

Each session will be different focusing on a topic that leads into a story or poem.
That means you can book one day or all four. Children don’t need to bring anything as paper and pencils will be provided. If you want to pack a snack for them, that’s fine just no nuts please.

Sessions last an hour from 10:30 to 11:30am Monday to Thursday.

I have been DBS checked.

You can book here: https://allgoodbookshop.co.uk/order-books-1/ols/products/7-11-creative-writing-workshop

Cool Poetry

Some sessions focused on poetry using a refrain about a friend who is an alien monster. The children produced some cool poetry.

Aurelia’s Poem
Aurelia’s Poem

Odd Bod

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most unusual bod

His legs are so spindly and long
His face is black as soot
As for his hair
Well he just doesn’t care

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most usual bod

He smells so bad
He has big ears
Eats so viciously
And out of his head
Comes antennas so big

AUREILA

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most unusual bod

He was eating all the maths books at 9:54
Can’t show his head because it’s dusty
In a certain way
Because he’s old

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most unusual bod

He is so bad at brushing his hair
He looks like a wild bear
He can’t bear it
He can’t say his prayers

TED

2022 and all that

Well, 2022 brought a number of changes which impacted on what I write here. I have been submitting a new novel for consideration. But primarily, I have been writing a lot of prose-poetry. This has led me to the new outlet for my writing of Spoken Word.

What is Spoken Word?

Spoken word is when you perform any piece of writing to a group of people. It is often poetry but can be a story, monologue, or something else. It is quite flexible as to format.

Due to writing a lot of prose-poetry and sharing at my favourite writing group, I was encouraged to attend a Spoken Word night. I went along, sat, watched, then thought: I want to set up one of those. And where better than my favourite bookshop in my local area. So far they have been going well and I have been exposed to some great fresh writing that excites me and always leaves me thinking. Such a variety is on offer. All unique voices that should be heard.

Children love Spoken Word and enjoy writing poetry so it is a great thing to do for World Book Week. Why not start by enjoying watching some Michael Rosen, Benjamin Zephaniah, John Hegley, Kate Tempest, or Anthony Joseph?

As well as Spoken Word, I have been plotting and writing another one. I have changed my approach and audience for it. I’m venturing somewhere new. It is challenging and exciting. I’m trying to apply some of the approaches I use for my prose-poetry to the novel writing. I’m not sure it will work. Only time can tell.

What have you been doing?

Wild Words Festival 2022

So Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th June is the Wild Words Festival in Cuffley, Hertforshire. I am on stage Friday at 4:30pm and I must say I am really looking forward to it.

I have been sifting through my children’s poems to find daft ones, silly ones, disgusting ones to share to warm the audience up before we get onto the serious business of wishes.

Wishes are so important to stories. Without them many things would not happen. Events would not take place and characters would not be motivated to do something. Of course, the problem with making a wish is that usually something goes wrong as Billy found out Wishbone Billy.

If you can make the festival, do say high and do let me know what you thought of my books if you bought them. I always love to find out from children what they think. If you can’t make the Wish Wonder you will probably find me hanging out in the festival’s bookshop buying more books when I really shouldn’t. I have so many to read already!

Anyway, whatever you are doing over the weekend don’t forget to take time to find a quiet space and make a wish. Maybe just a small one. You never know who might be listening.

Poem: Utopia City

I will build in my city

green spires circling trees and grass
swallows nesting in the rooftops
fruit trees hanging from window baskets

I will build in my city

parks with hidden tunnels to secret places
cat cafes to sip tea and share a biscuit
floating platforms to dive from into the bluest water

I will build in my city

plastic free markets where food is free
warm beds to rest in spacious rooms
health care for all from birth to grave

I will build in my city

acceptance, tolerance and love
the friendly greetings of strangers
the kindly helping hands of neighbours

I will build in my city

me.

This came about because I have been thinking of my children and what will become of them in the future. I feel children have the power to make real change to the world. As you grow older, you can get stuck in your ways, and lose vision. Children are full of imagination and hope for the future.

POEM: Bookshop

Quiet are the shelves
Time to let the words whisper.
Tomorrow they will be noisy.
Shouting stories at customers.
Protesting: buy me!
Medusa will leave you as a stone.
Transfixed before the shelves.
If only you had brought a shield.
But then, it is a bookshop.

This poem came about because I was in my favourite bookshop waiting for the end of day. It made me think of how quiet a bookshop must be at night and how each page of the books had a story to tell and wanted our attention.

Moment 57

Almost night. The light dims. The time when the big ones sleep. It is your time. Time to rise and stretch. Take a bite. A drink. To explore. A garden of possibilities.
Not star dark yet.
You sniff the air. Feel the night breeze on your face. Stroking you. A distant sound. Dog calling. Too distant for trouble. A jump. A gymnast on a bar. You dance along. Instinct.
Then sit.
This will be the last time. You feel it. In your paws. In your bones. The coming of the end. No more to watch the flight of falling stars. No more to search among the ground for the exciting. You think back to the loves. The wars. They are gone now. Only you remain.
Silver at your ears. Watching the days. But this the last. No more.
The end of nine.

This came about thinking of a twilight memory. It struck me it would be more interesting if it wasn’t a human but an animal thinking of their life. I chose second person as I wanted to put the reader into the body of the animal. To become the animal. To make them closer to the animal. To increase empathy. I think it works.

Book Birthday

I’m pleased to announce the launch of BAD ELF. This is now available from Amazon for £5.99.

About the book: A fantastical journey with elves, bears, some well-known fairy tale characters, and Father Christmas!

Most elves are happy, kind and love working for Santa making Christmas toys for good little girls and good little boys.
But not Bob.
He’s bad with a capital B-A-D.
And he is fed up. He is fed up with reindeers and making toys for that stupid red-clothed idiot. So he runs away.

Join Bob on his search to find a new job away from the North Pole in a world full of wacky, eccentric characters that will have you laughing out loud.

Available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739868501/

POEM: Grandma is a fossil

My grandma is a fossil
Or so I have been told
She lies upon her bed
With teeth mainly gold

She doesn’t move much
But lies gathering dust
As still as a great stone
With a lip of tea crust

Gonna be a scientist
Get a spade and dig her up
With a brush I’ll be careful
To push away the muck

My great fossil grandma
Would get me on the news
People would line up outside
Standing in their twos

This poem came about as I needed a poem about fossils. I remembered the phrase ‘Grandma is an old fossil’ so it got me thinking about how old people are similar to fossils and what could happen if you treated them as one. I composed this one in my heard driving home.

POEM: Darksiders

Moon above
Sellotaped wings
Plastic fangs
Night kings
Little witches
In a line
Waiting for the clock
To chime
Bobbing apples
In a bowl
A sweet treat
Is your goal
Pumpkins with
Toothy grins
Light the path
Of the twins
Black cats
Furry spiders
Tickle the faces
Of the darksiders

This poem was inspired by the annual Hallowe’en celebrations in my road. Watching my children and neighbour’s kids get dressed up in homemade costumes to go Trick Or Treating. One of my favourite times of year, ushering in Autumn and dark nights.

stuff about writing

Image of cup with writing on it. Prose poem writing.

So I have been reading ‘Swallowed by a Whale’ which is a book all about writing by writers and I have come to a few conclusions about writing.


1) Write. You should write. There is no avoiding it. Even if you dislike it. You have to write to become a writer. Many say each day. Or regularly. The amount of time does not matter or the word count. The important thing is to do some writing. Not to put it off. Procrastinate. Clean the tiles in the kitchen with a toothbrush. After all, that blank page will not fill itself.

2) Thinking counts as writing. Daydreaming counts as writing. Going for a walk daydreaming about thinking about writing counts as writing. It is important to do. It solves writing problems. It gives your mind space to create. No need to ask permission. Just do it. I find walking somewhere or sitting in a pub always works for me. Try it.

3) Adverbs are out. And adjectives as well. Exclamation marks for some reason! I have no idea why. They just say they are. Words will be next. You have been warned.

4) Where you write doesn’t matter. At a table. On the tube. In a specially constructed hut with all your nice things that someone else paid for (I wish). I tend to write in pubs. I find if I am away from household things I’m not feeling guilty about the things I haven’t done. I can give myself permission to write. When I’m in the house and writing I feel neglectful.

5) Get your first draft down and don’t worry too much about errors. Do not start rewriting your first few chapters over and over again as much of it will be cut. Mind you, I don’t follow that rule at the moment. I am writing a chapter, taking an enforced break, re-writing that chapter, write a new one. I find it gets me back in to writing as I can’t always write every day. It continues my flow and allows me to think of ideas to add to a chapter and act on it within a short time frame. I’m no good at making novel writing notes. Mine would be too brief so completely incomprehensible when going back to a chapter. Or so detailed, they would take longer than the novel. My approach works for me. It may work for you. Try it. Think about. Then do it your way.

6) Do not compare yourself to other writers or try to be another writer. You can’t. You can only be you. Their books you read have had a lot of time spent on so your first draft won’t be like that. And their lived experience makes them what they are and how they write. If you try to copy, it will be a pale imitation. Write you. Do not worry about other writers’ success. Think about your own triumphs. Set yourself small manageable goals. It is the nature of writing that you will never be happy with what you have achieved. Sorry. But we are riddled with self doubt. Even great writers like Dickens thought their writing might not be up to scratch.

7) Do not read reviews. Positive ones will only enlarge the ego and make you think you are a master of your craft and don’t need to improve. This leads to stagnation. Or you will think you are terrible and stay awake every night thinking about them. Just be happy if someone buys your book. If only just once. Someone liked the idea. You.

9) If you’re writing you are a writer. No one says to an unexhibited artist they’re not an artist or unrecorded musician they are not a musician. If you create you are a creator. You don’t need permission or official recognition to be a writer. Are you writing? Then you’re a writer. It’s that simple.

10) Writers like lists. They’re quick to write.

Thoughts based on Swallowed by A Whale (How to survive the writing life),’Edited by Huw Lewis-Jones.

More about Elves

He was always a bad acorn.

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A BAD ACORN

  In a land far away, in a very cold place, a place colder than your fridge, far colder than eating six ice-creams in snow or even colder still than sticking your tongue to an icy pole on winter’s day, is the Surprising Forest.

  In the Surprising Forest is tall oak tree after oak tree after oak tree after…you get the idea. And every Autumn the acorns fall to the ground to be picked up and stored by the Little Fluff Squirrels. Now, when Winter comes, the Little Fluff Squirrels hid away from the cold to protect their little toesies and spend their time snoring their heads off.

  And when spring comes, those same Little Fluff Squirrels finally get out of bed and go get something to eat. The Little Fluff Squirrels usually find most of the acorns they have stored away in their hidey places and goggle them up. The lazy, greedy pigs! But some acorns, just a few of the special emerald green acorns are forgotten. There they lie, waiting for the first full moon of Spring. And when it arrives, reflecting its majikal light onto the forest floor, little elves hatch out of the acorns like ugly chicks from eggs. But here’s the strangest thing: every single one of them is fully grown; a little man, with long beards and everything. This is true. I swear to you, no lie.

  But when the Bad Elf was born things were different. When his acorn fell, no Little Fluff Squirrels wanted to touch it – they hid from it! It lay there, in its bleak place, alone. Not a wonderful, emerald green colour but a dark, dark black. A black so dark that if you peered at it, you would feel like you were falling, down, down, down forever.

  So there it lay. Untouched. Waiting.

  Waiting for the moon to shine. And when it did shine, the acorn cracked open like knuckles and a dreadful smell oozed out of it, across the forest floor, turning any fallen leaves to dust and the forest to silence.

  Out rose the Bad Elf, a fully grown little man, with a long beard and eyes of flame. This was the beginning of Bob.